AT&T announces plans to use 700Mhz channels for LTE Broadcast

Yesterday at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia Conference in New York, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson announced that his company would be allocating the 700Mhz Lower D and E blocks of spectrum that it acquired from Qualcomm in 2011 to build out its LTE Broadcast service. Fierce Wireless reported from the event and noted that this spectrum was destined for additional data capacity. In a recent FCC filing, AT&T put off deploying LTE in this spectrum due to administrative and technical delays caused by the 3G Partnership Project's continued evaluation of carrier aggregation in LTE Advanced.

No timeline was given for deploying LTE Broadcast, but Stephenson stressed the importance of video to AT&T's strategy over the next few years.

The aptly named LTE Broadcast is an adaptation of the LTE technology we know and love, but in just one direction. In the case of AT&T's plans, either 6Mhz or 12Mhz will be available for data transmission, depending on the market. In 6Mhz markets there would be some bandwidth limitations, but plenty enough to distribute a live television event, like the Super Bowl or March Madness. Vitally, since the content is broadcast indiscriminately to any handsets capable of receiving it, there's no upper limit to the number of recipients of the data. So, instead of having a wireless data network crumble under the weight of thousands of users watching March Madness on their phones and devices at one cell site, the data network remains intact, and everyone gets to watch the games.

Verizon Wireless has a similar proposal in the works, with vague hopes that they'll be able to be in position to leverage their ongoing relationship with the NFL for the 2014 Super Bowl. Neither Verizon Wireless nor AT&T is hurting for spectrum right now, so it's nice to see them putting it to good use.

53 Reader Comments

Sounds good and all, but will I need to buy a new device to use this capability or will my iPhone 5 be able to receive this new broadcast video? And if I don't need to upgrade devices, how much will AT&T charge me for this new privilege?

One of the real challenges of a wireless system is interference; the MBMS system that they'll use does not suffer from this problem since the same signal is transmitted from all cellular base-stations.

Aside from the fun technical details, the real question is exactly what content will be delivered, and how much will they charge to use them.

It's worth noting that 6mhz limits will be the situation in most of the country. While ATT has the entire D block, outside of parts of California and a strip in the northeast from DC to New Hampshire Echostar has the E block.

Interesting. According to Qualcomm [1], they expect 17mbps with 10mhz carrier in a "dense" deployment. I'd be surprised if it's assumable to always run dense. Their "suburban" deployment with a cell radius of 1km gives us an easier to round 1mbps per mhz, so we're looking at around 6mbps from 6mhz carrier.

For comparison, a HD Netflix stream is 5mbps. That's pretty tight. If we're looking at HD quality, we're talking 1-2 streams, but certainly less than 16. Ericsson [2] counts streams to mobile at 800kbps (this feels a bit low considering many full-HD screens on mobiles). They also give a bit of insight on how they intend to monetize it.

Based on that, the closest parameters that seem likely are either partnerships with sports channels, bundling with U-Verse or a special "app". I doubt there will be a "pay per minute" option or something silly like that.

In any event, we're looking at mostly event broadcasts. The bandwidth is certainly not enough to create mobile television (thankfully?), and, while depressing, I doubt it will be used to, as Ericsson optimistically suggests, push out software updates. That's unheard of.

Will be a complete, flaming failure... Plenty of countries around the world have tried video broadcasts to mobile phones... DVB-H, DMB, ATSC-M/H, etc. They're all dead in the water, going nowhere.

People want to watch video on their phones, but on-demand... What they want, when they want it. Not being locked-in to traditional broadcast schedules.

Want to watch broadcast TV on your phone or tablet? Just get an ATSC (or DVB-T) receiver, and you can get the 100+ channels currently being broadcast through the air, everywhere, and using less spectrum than LTE will. We've already got a broadcast TV network across the world. Cell phone companies reinventing it is a non-starter, yet they keep stupidly trying.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

Also by not putting user data on the D block, they avoid being forced to allow any legal use by any valid device. This is AT&T's last hope of blocking Google Wallet, because the moment they use these frequency bands for cellular data, they can't arbitrary block data apps like Google wallet.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

Not at all amusing, and ABSOLUTELY true. This last reallocation was forcefully lobbied for by cell companies, who more or less bushwhacked the local broadcasting industry which was splintered and full of infighting and embattled with cable.

The intent was explicitly to take this frequency away from broadcast tv for use by cellular.

The carriers fought long and hard to prevent TV tuners from being put in tablets and phones. These cost less than 3 bucks. But allowing that would justify retaining broadcast TV.

Broadcast television returns! (And it uses new and improved cellular technology!)

I wonder if this is why Dish tried so hard to buy Sprint? If they wanted to go from satellite to terrestrial broadcast, they'd need a lot of cellular bandwidth, and that's one thing Sprint has a lot of.

Actually, Dish owns some of its own spectrum that it is working to get approved for cellular use, so maybe they'll be doing something like this too.

Will be a complete, flaming failure... Plenty of countries around the world have tried video broadcasts to mobile phones... DVB-H, DMB, ATSC-M/H, etc. They're all dead in the water, going nowhere.

People want to watch video on their phones, but on-demand... What they want, when they want it. Not being locked-in to traditional broadcast schedules.

The only exception is live sporting events. Verizon has the Super Bowl, and ATT has march madness. So that's what they'll use to stream the events.

The problem is low bandwidth. If it were possible to deliver a 30Mbps channel in 5MHz then this would work well - you could cram four 720P streams into that (say, your local four network stations). Instead you'll get one HD and one SD channel.

AT&T is being disingenuous. I think this another bullshit scheme to sit on 700mhz D/E longer without actually deploying it. Or maybe a ploy to get Charlie Ergen to sell AT&T the rest of the E block.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

Am I supposed to feel badly for broadcasters? Most of them have terrible looking upscaled content on the .1 subchannel. On any other subchannel, you get even worse crap (except PBS.) Broadcast TV in most markets could have been served by a few actual broadcast towers on a couple expanded-width channels with renumbering to make subchannels for local affiliates look like the familiar channels to consumers. There's usually only the big networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS and maybe a Mexican station) broadcasting HD content requiring a lot of spectrum. The spectrum could be better used to get people information the way they've shown they prefer it: on demand. Get back the spectrum being wasted on PAX stations and others just broadcasting infomercials to collect retransmission fees from cable companies.

AT&T is being disingenuous. I think this another bullshit scheme to sit on 700mhz D/E longer without actually deploying it. Or maybe a ploy to get Charlie Ergen to sell AT&T the rest of the E block.

Well...in order to use the spectrum for this stupid broadcast scheme they have to build out transmitters. We don't know what kind of basebands ATT is using, but I assume they are using software base stations that let them automatically reprovision spectrum. Hanlon's Razor and all that.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

Am I supposed to feel badly for broadcasters? Most of them have terrible looking upscaled content on the .1 subchannel. On any other subchannel, you get even worse crap (except PBS.) Broadcast TV in most markets could have been served by a few actual broadcast towers on a couple expanded-width channels with renumbering to make subchannels for local affiliates look like the familiar channels to consumers. There's usually only the big networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS and maybe a Mexican station) broadcasting HD content requiring a lot of spectrum. The spectrum could be better used to get people information the way they've shown they prefer it: on demand. Get back the spectrum being wasted on PAX stations and others just broadcasting infomercials to collect retransmission fees from cable companies.

Personally I think broadcasters should get a new standard approved for use on their suchannels that uses H.265 compression. Why?

...Over the air 4K television, especially movies and sports.

Come on guys, get creative. Give us something better. Give us an excuse to buy new televisions and come back to your stations, and make us the envy of our friends and neighbors.

Why not just put an ATSC tuner in the phone (as they do in some countries) instead of trying to shoehorn it into LTE? Oh, right, because now they can monetize it. Taking TV broadcast spectrum away to broadcast TV except under less favorable terms? Humbug.

There's actually a standard for broadcasting for phones in the US, that is actually a better standard than ATSC (because it came later): it is called ATSC-M/H or sometimes Mobile Digital Television. And, believe it or not, some broadcasters in several cities are actually broadcasting it on their subchannels. I don't know if anyone is receiving it, though. That you haven't even heard of it shows just how (un)successful it has been.

Which gets back to my better (if I do say so myself) idea for using these subchannels: 4KTV.

So quickly we forget the BS story they told the World and the FCC. WE MUST HAVE SPECTRUM OR ALL CALLS WILL NOT BE COMPLETED.

When are liars going to be held accountable in private business?

The FCC needs to return to the Public, the Spectrum it leased to private interests so that unbridled innovation and broadband can flourish, instead of this idocracy. Who runs these so-called telecommunications companies? The Walmart Family?

At least at Walmart they do attempt to bring prices down and improve product quality. Perhaps they *should* be running our Public Spectrum Leaseholders: Wireless Companies - like ATT/Verizon.

This is an inane mis-use of the public's spectrum and will only drain the bandwidth that is already mis-managed by these rotary dial companies turned 'internet telecom businesses'.

Sounds good and all, but will I need to buy a new device to use this capability or will my iPhone 5 be able to receive this new broadcast video? And if I don't need to upgrade devices, how much will AT&T charge me for this new privilege?

You will probably be replacing your phone a time or two before this gets rolled out, they are not even putting a timeline on it. So probably not in the next year or two, and could be a few before wide deployment.

I wish but that is only part of it with cell phones, if you had a great multicast today then every phone would still need to connect with it's own individual connection to the tower. Unfortunately this is probably going to be limited to major events, maybe one day something for the people at the games, after that it probably will be a long shot for even a video site as large as youtube for it to be beneficial enough to them and the telcos by having enough people watching the same video, at the same cell tower, all starting near the same time so they could start people in groups or download the start for you and buffering what is already coming over the are in your location; though if youtube does more on the live events there could be a join event in progress feature that could start saving a lot to both sides.

Am I supposed to feel badly for broadcasters? Most of them have terrible looking upscaled content on the .1 subchannel. On any other subchannel, you get even worse crap (except PBS.) Broadcast TV in most markets could have been served by a few actual broadcast towers on a couple expanded-width channels with renumbering to make subchannels for local affiliates look like the familiar channels to consumers. There's usually only the big networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS and maybe a Mexican station) broadcasting HD content requiring a lot of spectrum. The spectrum could be better used to get people information the way they've shown they prefer it: on demand. Get back the spectrum being wasted on PAX stations and others just broadcasting infomercials to collect retransmission fees from cable companies.

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Dallas–Ft Worth I get HD broadcasts from NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, MyNetworkTV, CW, Ion, three independent stations, Univisión, UniMás, Telemundo, and Azteca América. (And no, the latter four aren’t “Mexican stations.” They’re as American as Taco Bell.) Several of them do broadcast infomercials at night, but that’s because hardly anyone is watching then. During primetime, that spectrum really is needed to broadcast everything the general public wants to watch.

It’d be neat if, instead of infomercials, TV stations could get paid to make their spectrum available for “white spaces” wireless network use at off-peak times.

Sounds good and all, but will I need to buy a new device to use this capability or will my iPhone 5 be able to receive this new broadcast video? And if I don't need to upgrade devices, how much will AT&T charge me for this new privilege?

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

I agree with with making sure every single Mhz is used is a good idea, so making sure the TV Stations use the smallest amount of bandwidth as possible is a great idea.

What I don't agree with is then selling the same spectrum to companies who never used it. In order to purchase spectrum you should have a 2-5-10 year plan for it. if you fail to implement your plan at those stages it goes back up for auction, the money you originally paid is returned, so I new owner can implement a use for it.

In Japan mobile phone TV popular. In indonesia mobile phone TV also popular but using cheap Chinese phone with air antenna

Because they typically have much smaller residences than Americans, for space reasons the Japanese tend to be much closer to one TV per house than one TV per room. That's always been seen as the main driver behind mobile TV there.

Sounds good and all, but will I need to buy a new device to use this capability or will my iPhone 5 be able to receive this new broadcast video? And if I don't need to upgrade devices, how much will AT&T charge me for this new privilege?

Considering that their "service" is already WAY overpriced I'm going to say way too much. However, I do predict they'll manage to come out with a comercial or three that lets you know how much of a favor they're doing you by letting you pay them too much for the service.

For an extra $10 per device you can use the data you've already paid for! Aren't we so generous?

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

I agree with with making sure every single Mhz is used is a good idea, so making sure the TV Stations use the smallest amount of bandwidth as possible is a great idea.

What I don't agree with is then selling the same spectrum to companies who never used it. In order to purchase spectrum you should have a 2-5-10 year plan for it. if you fail to implement your plan at those stages it goes back up for auction, the money you originally paid is returned, so I new owner can implement a use for it.

In other words we should already have phones on the 700Mhz spectrum.

I'm with you on everything but the money being returned. You bought it and did nothing with it? That's your problem.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

And where did you get this info from? ATSC uses MPEG-2 encoding for video so unless you want highly pixelated images, there is no way you can stuff 10 subchannels in that 6mhz ATSC stream. Total stream bandwidth is 19.2 megabits, with about 18 actually useable and a decent standard def only stream needs about 3-3.5 megabits, HD needs between 10-14 depending on whether it is 720 or 1080i and the content. Us broadcasters that care about our viewers don't like to transmit the pixelated mess you get from cable or sat compressing the shit out the streams. That is using the best encoders on the market, currently Harris's Selenio series of encoders.

Secondly due to IM3 interference, even with the best sharp tune filters and exciters, you can't use all 50 channels in a given area, you still need guard bands or the tuners in your set won't work. There has been lots of research on this.

And yes it is laughable that wireless companies that supposedly face a bandwidth crunch have enough bandwidth now that they can dedicate a not insignificant chunk to broadcast. I wonder what they will charge for that though? They might not charge for a data cap, but I would bet there will be a per game or per season charge for the content, as no sports league is going to give it to them for free and you can be certain they aren't going to pay the fees out of the kindness of their heart.

There's actually a standard for broadcasting for phones in the US, that is actually a better standard than ATSC (because it came later): it is called ATSC-M/H or sometimes Mobile Digital Television. And, believe it or not, some broadcasters in several cities are actually broadcasting it on their subchannels. I don't know if anyone is receiving it, though. That you haven't even heard of it shows just how (un)successful it has been.

Which gets back to my better (if I do say so myself) idea for using these subchannels: 4KTV.

edit: to fix obsolete MPH name for the technology.

This is correct there is a specification called ATSC-M/H, we have a few stations that transmit it, the problem being there are very few devices out there, and I'm not sure if there are any current phones that can get it, getting the few that could approved and marketed by the carriers was pretty much impossible, as it didn't count towards your data use and they could not charge for it. So that baby got smothered. It doesn't work well with VHF stations due to antenna size required but with UHF stations the coverage was pretty good, it uses H.264 and a lot of error correction packets to allow it to work in moving vehicles, something impossible to do with standard ATSC. It's coded into the ATSC stream so that a normal ATSC tuner sees it as a dummy packet and just ignores it, so no one had to swap out their existing tuner. It typically is aired in place of an existing subchannel and uses about 3.5megabits for the stream. More bandwidth allows for more error correction and resolution. Most stations air a retransmission of their main HD channel on it, but it could be used for anything. And its free.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

The only reason I can see this is to get around net neutrality. Internet Service Providers want to be more than just dumb pipes and want "play". This is not a good idea as it is now in their interest to degrade netflix or youtube if they offer the same videos on demand that the ISP broadcasts.

We should absolutely block this as it is monopolistic from the get go. At least make it so that when they are caught cheating, they will face huge punitive damages (and not just a slap on the wrist).

This spectrum was already in use for digital broadcast video by MediaFLO. The Qualcomm technology was offered by AT&T and VZW (who also branded it as vCast) but only on a handful of devices. It died on the vine due to the severe lack of equipment--there was even a dedicated MediaFLO video tablet sold in retail stores that nobody wanted--probably because the demo didn't work well inside the store, oddly enough.

Now that it's using LTE we can finally seriously consider mobile devices as viable competitors to true one-to-many broadcast services like regular TV and radio. 700 MHz has superior building penetration. It's too bad Qualcomm doesn't benefit from the deal aside from selling off their dead spectrum.

ATSC-M/H is not a viable competitor since it piggybacks on existing ATSC channels using the space in between and almost nobody is interested in implementing it on a mobile device that already has too many air interfaces on it. If the ATSC committee had any sense, they would have designed ATSC to survive the doppler effect and multipath, but they didn't, and that's why we don't have handheld ATSC receivers that work in a moving vehicle.

I just don't see a real interest in watching large amounts of video on a small screen in general. I see the logic here when big events are taking place, it might reduce load on the network. This would likely only work if the downstream video content is a free addition to contracts. Also, i would also think that the much of the traffic during these situations are regular data, such as fantasy football etc.

I would be very interested in learning what they have planned for the spectrum when large events are not taking place and putting stress on the regular network.

This spectrum was already in use for digital broadcast video by MediaFLO. The Qualcomm technology was offered by AT&T and VZW (who also branded it as vCast) but only on a handful of devices. It died on the vine due to the severe lack of equipment--there was even a dedicated MediaFLO video tablet sold in retail stores that nobody wanted--probably because the demo didn't work well inside the store, oddly enough.

Now that it's using LTE we can finally seriously consider mobile devices as viable competitors to true one-to-many broadcast services like regular TV and radio. 700 MHz has superior building penetration. It's too bad Qualcomm doesn't benefit from the deal aside from selling off their dead spectrum.

ATSC-M/H is not a viable competitor since it piggybacks on existing ATSC channels using the space in between and almost nobody is interested in implementing it on a mobile device that already has too many air interfaces on it. If the ATSC committee had any sense, they would have designed ATSC to survive the doppler effect and multipath, but they didn't, and that's why we don't have handheld ATSC receivers that work in a moving vehicle.

So . . . they're re-invented broadcast television but this time you can get it on your mobile device.

So they forced TV broadcasters to sell this spectrum just so AT&T couldn't use it to Broadcast more TV?

*FacePalm*

Amusing, but not actually true. The FCC has cut-down the TV spectrum a few times before as well. As technology improves, they can pack more TV in less channels. With the switch to digital/ATSC, there's no more need for huge guard bands and whatnot. While analog could only have maybe 30 TV stations on 70 channels, digital can have 50 broadcasters using all 50 remaining channels, and each of those can even broadcast 10 different sub-channels if they so choose, while 2-4 sub-channels per channel is common.

The upcoming repack will be much more disruptive and a blatant and ridiculous handout to cellphone companies (who don't really need any more spectrum) at the expense of squeezing TV broadcasters.

Not at all amusing, and ABSOLUTELY true. This last reallocation was forcefully lobbied for by cell companies, who more or less bushwhacked the local broadcasting industry which was splintered and full of infighting and embattled with cable.

The intent was explicitly to take this frequency away from broadcast tv for use by cellular.

The carriers fought long and hard to prevent TV tuners from being put in tablets and phones. These cost less than 3 bucks. But allowing that would justify retaining broadcast TV.

Just think: we could watch Gilligan's Island and informercials on 500 channels!